Green transport latest news

The taxman has decided a government scheme to allow employees to buy cheap bikes for commuting is too generous.

With London’s ‘Boris Bikes’ now being used for 14,000 journeys each day, the need for an easy-to-use and real-time representation of which docking stations are full has been met not by the organisers of the cycle hire scheme but by a research associate at UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis working in his spare time.

Business secretary Vince Cable may feel that his decision to reduce the £230m pledged for Britain’s forthcoming ‘Plug-in electric car grant’ to £43m was unnecessary following the news this week that the Spanish government has paid a similar grant to only 16 drivers this year.

Sales of 3-seat electric bicycles are soaring in Japan as school-run drivers in congested cities like Tokyo swap their cars for bikes such as the £1,000 Angelino pictured right.